The Zen of AI

Raw is better than distilled. Distilled is better than empty. Too much context is better than too little. Although scattered context is worse than none. Bad prompts demand; good prompts provide. Examples teach; errors teach best. Ask what’s wrong, not what’s right. Tool calls are better than tokens. Autonomous does not mean automated. Babysitting is not the same as building. Failures should be loud and safe. Many minds beat one. Although no minds often beats many. What costs little to generate costs much to manage. Be generous with tokens, miserly with attention. Protect the spiky bits. AI can’t do X is a dangerous premise. The sun sets on every model. The master trains their replacement with every move.